Newsletter – The Electrification Of Fruit

Dear Reader,

Once again I would like to say that the autoresponder on my website should now be working as intended. If you signed up for my newsletter at the tail end of 2017 but you never received your free download then please let me know.

The series of short videos which I am gathering together under the title ‘Rough Cut Creativity’ are being added to but are not yet published. If you have not had a peek yet then you can find them via YouTube by clicking here.

#justdaydreaming

At what point did someone realise that the Earth was not flat? That is one big change in thinking. Try thinking ‘What If?’ about more everyday things (or even in your business) and see where that takes you. What if chips had never been invented? What would we be eating with fish or burgers?

#justthinking

Travel Agents are just Travel Agents, right? Wrong! Since I talk about finding The Difference That Makes The Difference, how about this? For all you business people out there, did you know that you can actually book flights months in advance (guaranteeing that seat and that price) but not have to pay until much closer to departure? Similar things can be done with hotel rooms too! It makes business travel much easier. For more ways to find out how the pain of travel can be taken away get in touch with Daniel Reed (email danielr@travel-pa.com or visit the Reed Travel website).

Now, back to the fruit ….

Whilst standing in the shower I let my mind wander a little (well quite a bit actually) and it settled upon the electrification of fruit as a topic. I began to wonder what electrified fruit might look, smell and feel like. What functionality would it have, what consumer needs would it fulfill? My sensible, logical side then said ‘don’t be silly you can’t electrify fruit’. And it might be right but flip this on its head, what if fruit could supply electricity?

Many of us have at some time created a ‘potato clock’, a device powered by a potato. That will not save the energy problems that we have because it produces very little current but the subject of fruit & veg together with electricity is a very interesting space for ideas (biomass etc).

This led me to think a little more seriously about assumptions and boundaries. Many people might assume that fruit and vegetables have no place mixing with electricity. Someone has created an arbitrary boundary there, a fence that says ‘do not enter’ to your brain. This might be a good idea but what if …?

Another interesting subject is that of stereotypes or categories. Do you remember when the EU first started meddling in food products? In Portugal, they produced Carrot Marmalade. I’m sure that it is a fine product and the EU obviously thought so too. They had previously decreed that marmalade must be made from fruit and so redefined carrots as fruit rather than vegetables.

This arbitrary and silly categorisation has far-reaching consequences but it is entirely unnecessary. It now forces EU bureaucrats to think of the category of fruit as containing carrots whilst the category vegetables does not contain carrots. This might mean that carrot growers are treated as exactly as fruit growers or excluded from obtaining grants or subsidies aimed at farmers or vegetable growers.

How often does our categorisation of objects or behaviours prevent us from solving problems or taking a potentially advantageous course of action? Instead of being controlled by labels, we should focus on what works and what does not. Maybe one day we will electrify fruit, who knows? Until then, let us trample over the arbitrary boundaries that are created.

Please do get in touch or provide feedback by replying to this newsletter, or using any of the contact methods listed on the website derekcheshire.com.

Happy reading,

Derek Cheshire

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Derek is a Fellow of the RSA, a speaker, facilitator, award-winning radio presenter and Adjunct Professor at VIT University, Chennai. He has been working in the field of Business Creativity and Innovation since 2002.